Until recently, if one wanted 5.1 surround sound there were only few options.

A small black box with impressive features.

What follows is the original review for the 2010 version of the decoder, which was pretty good compared to more recent ones. Obviously, you will need at least a minimum of electronics skills. Please do not mail me asking how to hack your particular unit before you have at least made a decent attempt at doing it yourself. When it comes to hacking the latest versions, I am at least as clueless as you because I don't even have the device you have. If however you do want to try your luck, this review can still be useful to know what to look for when evaluating the newer versions and how to get started hacking them, but do not expect any specific answers if you ask me how to hack what you've just bought. My current advice is not to buy these things unless you are sure you can obtain the same model as I reviewed here. I have found reports that the current versions are pretty much unusable. They all have flaws, and in the usual fashion of budget Chinese products, they seem to get worse with each new version. I stopped keeping track of the different variations.

Several newer versions have appeared, and keep appearing once in a while.

This review is for the very first version that appeared on the market around 2009, and this version is no longer sold. They are, or at least used to be, a great solution to obtain half-way decent surround sound without having to buy a complete receiver. These decoders come in two variations, one with three 3.5mm output jacks and one with six separate RCA jacks. It can also perform Dolby Pro Logic II decoding on an analog or digital PCM stereo input. This article reviews a small standalone decoder that can take as input either an optical S/PDIF (TOSLINK) or coaxial digital audio signal, and output it as six separate analog outputs.

Missing dolby audio decoder